Cationic iron complexes ketones

Our work on the bifunctional activation of CO insertion was prompted by the thought that strong molecular Lewis acids should be more effective and more general than simple cations. It already had been observed that molecular Lewis acids would promote a molecular Fischer-Tropsch type reaction (5), and that iron diene complexes can be converted to polycyclic ketones by the action of aluminum halides, equation 7,(18), but information on the course of these reactions was sketchy. 

The EAN of iron in this complex is 34, but it may be a solvated ion. Treatment of the salt with water gives 2-butanone, which was presumed to have been formed via nucleophilic attack on the cation to give a TT-allyl alcohol complex. This complex was then assumed to rearrange via the tricarbonyl hydride to an enol complex, which collapses to the ketone ... 

Hence, the first clearcut evidence for the involvement of enol radical cations in ketone oxidation reactions was provided by Henry [109] and Littler [110,112]. From kinetic results and product studies it was concluded that in the oxidation of cyclohexanone using the outer-sphere one-electron oxidants, tris-substituted 2,2 -bipyridyl or 1,10-phenanthroline complexes of iron(III) and ruthenium(III) or sodium hexachloroiridate(IV) (IrCI), the cyclohexenol radical cation (65" ) is formed, which rapidly deprotonates to the a-carbonyl radical 66. An upper limit for the deuterium isotope effect in the oxidation step (k /kjy < 2) suggests that electron transfer from the enol to the metal complex occurs prior to the loss of the proton [109]. In the reaction with the ruthenium(III) salt, four main products were formed 2-hydroxycyclohexanone (67), cyclohexenone, cyclopen tanecarboxylic acid and 1,2-cyclohexanedione, whereas oxidation with IrCl afforded 2-chlorocyclohexanone in almost quantitative yield. Similarly, enol radical cations can be invoked in the oxidation reactions of aliphatic ketones with the substitution inert dodecatungstocobaltate(III), CoW,20 o complex [169]. Unfortunately, these results have never been linked to the general concept of inversion of stability order of enol/ketone systems (Sect. 2) and thus have never received wide attention. 

If iron carbonyl is used to generate the oxyallyl cation, the iron supplies two extra electrons in the complex 90 which now adds23 to mono-enes to give cyclopentanones 91. We shall see more examples of transition metal complexes altering selectivity later in the book. To get a cyclopentenone 92 we need an extra degree of unsaturation, best provided by using the enamine of a ketone instead of a simple alkene. 

Early applications of iron cationic species resulted from the facile reaction of a, a -dibromo-(and tetrabromo) acetone with Fe2(CO)9 with formation of the cation (A). Such cationic complexes can be efficiently trapped by olefin with formation of five-membered ketones. The reaction with conjugated dienes affords a straightforward access to tropones. Furan is a particularly good acceptor of these cationic complexes whereas their addition to enamines constitutes a potentially useful pathway to prostaglandins (cyclopentenones being thus obtained). 

Nucleophilic addition to this complex salt occurs mostly at the 5-position. Addition of cyanides affords also a minor amount of an T), n -structure by addition to the 2-position. The tricarbonyl(Ti -3-methoxycyclohexa-2,4-dien-l-yl)iron cation reacts with a variety of nucleophiles, comprising organolithium reagents, ketones, silyl enol ethers, and allylsilanes, to give after oxidative demetalation 5-substituted cyclohex-2-enones (Scheme 4-175). 

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